StarCrash II - les évadés de la galaxie III

Italians have been notorious for churning out lots of bad sci-fi films in the late 70s in the wake of the success of STAR WARS. Who is this film supposed to appeal to? The special effects, costumes and dialog are childish and the sex scenes are so tame they could probably get a PG-rating in this country. Two aliens on a spaceship land on primitive Earth and learn how to have sex, while they're being chased by a big black dude with silver glitter in his beard. I fell asleep for awhile in the middle but I doubt I missed much.

ESCAPE FROM GALAXY 3 is yet another uproarious STAR WARS clone from Italy. With its disco-fueled sensibilities and ultra-fab costumes, this is why God created cinema!

It seems that intergalactic meanie, Oraclon (Don Powell) is up to no good, causing havoc and astonishingly bad "special" effects! Now, only one explosion after another can possibly stop him!

Cue the continual, generic disco music.

The wonderful thing about these epics is that they don't have to make any sense. At all. Just watching Oraclon in his flower-like, aqua / pink outfit and glitter-beard is enough to satisfy any fan of these films.

Enter Belle Star (Sherry Buchanan) in her dancing queen pantsuit, complete with a missing pant leg! As a bonus, her suit is also missing one upper side, compensated by a strategically-placed breast star!

This movie even has a Marjoe Gortner lookalike, wearing the latest in spandex ballet uniforms! Annnd, don't forget the entire civilization of men in miniskirts!

This is entertainment sent straight from the gods!

The quotable lines of dreadful dialogue are nonstop! The soft-soft core "love" scenes are painful! The endless dancing will twirl your brain in your skull!

WARNING: If you are sickened by the sight of pasty man-legs, stay away! This will only be traumatic for you!...

OK so this movie isn't the greatest, but it's still far from uninteresting. The only real connection it has to Luigi Cozzi's superior STAR CRASH is the use of certain special effects shots. They appear to use some of the same models & spacecraft, which would of course be cheaper than building new ones for this film, or better yet just recycle the same footage. Nobody will notice.

Most movies are about two or three things. First there is the story or plot -- this time out two mis-matched intergalactic lovers land on a planet populated by castoffs from "Buck Rogers In The 25th Century" and discover sex. This includes an eye-opening scene where the film's heroine/lead actress goes for a naked swim in some sort of erotic oasis. I say "eye opening" not just because she is a delightful little morsel, but because the content of the scene is so at odds with the form that the movie takes: It looks to have been made for kids, but has tits. Huh.

And that is the second thing that this movie is about: Mixing low octane erotics with Star Wars inspired (or maybe FLASH GORDON would be more likely considering Don Powell's Parliament/Funkadelic Space Tyrant costume: wow!!) juvenalia. It's an exploitation film taking on the appearance of a science fiction adventure to lure in the kids, plus some bared flesh -- kept to a minimum, just a tad beyond the tease level -- to keep their parents occupied. The film is also equal opportunity in parading about a little space strumpet for the guys to ogle as well as an astronomical Adonis for the ladies to swoon over. Or vice versa: you never can tell about some people these days.

The third thing this movie appears to be about is how the European cult genre film craze -- dating back to the Gladiator movies that much of the film resembles -- had pretty much worn itself out by 1981. The Italians always were the most imitative of the Euro filmmakers and by the time STAR CRASH 2 was made they were imitating their own forms. Like FLASH GORDON and YOR, HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE this is essentially an updated Peplum saga with laser guns instead of javelins, and illustrates how by 1981 Italian B cinema was finally forced to find it's own voice after stuff like this stopped working at the box office.

The Italians went from Peplums to Gothic horror to spy thrillers to Spaghetti Westerns to war movies to Gothic horror to crime thrillers to car racing movies to Star Wars ripoffs and then back to the horror genre again for the 3rd wave of Fulci, Argento, Lamberto Bava and Joe D'amato. STAR CRASH 2 was directed by the occasionally brilliant Bitto Albertini, who participated in all of those prior genres and was on the tail-end of his career, and while this certainly isn't his best film his name is the big draw here: Bert Albertino movies are rather hard to come by, but unlike his ZAMBO or THREE SUPERMEN films there isn't much to recommend this one, aside from the kitschy 80's sci fi production design and the sex.

I happen to like kitschy 80's sci fi production design and sex so I got a kick out of this one. You certainly won't find the likes of it made today, and for fans of the Alfonso Brescia Star Wars ripoff school of film-making this movie will be a welcomed addition. Anyone else be forewarned though: There be Italians in disco robes dancing in this movie, and unless you are used to stuff like that you will probably find it to be somewhat silly, and maybe even a little on the erotic side. Welcome to Italian cult genre film-making, we hope you enjoy your flight.

5/10

The most astounding and even downright perplexing observation regarding "Escape from Galaxy 3" is that all the many cast members and extras - and I assume these were all mentally sane people - deliberately agreed to walk around in ridiculously infantile costumes and speak the most nonsensical lines aloud! Were they not embarrassed? Did they not fear their relatives and friends would make fun of them for the rest of their lives? Or could it be they were genuinely believing they were part of something great? Maybe some sly Italian producer persuaded everyone this would become ten times more successful than "Star Wars"...

Although I'm not sure it's official, "Escape from Galaxy 3" is often referred to as sequel to Luigi Cozzi's "Star Crash". I don't remember a lot about that one, except that it was also an utterly deranged George Lucas rip-off, but a lot of fun to watch and starring a handful of stellar names like Caroline Munro, Christopher Plummer, and - oh yeah - David Hasselhoff. The wannabe sequel hasn't got any famous names, and even less budget.

In a galaxy far, far away (obviously the synopsis must begin like this) two interstellar tribes are at war. The evil tribe is led by a black guy with a golden beard, a preposterous costume, and a sort of Nazi henchman. The amiable tribe has a king with an oversized crown and an unearthly beautiful daughter named Princess Belle Star (she sure is!). The horrible war is illustrated through a lot of pew-pew with lasers and miniature toy-spaceships flying in front of colorful backgrounds that must have been drawn by the kindergarten class next door to the film studios. Since the tribe with the nice people is losing, the king sends his daughter and 1st commander away on a mission to seek allies in the galaxy. However, the two end up on Earth which was supposedly extinct after a nuclear war many centuries ago. Purely coincidental, I reckon, the duo does land amidst a tribe of human survivors that live primitively, and for some strange and inexplicable reason only hot women and hunky blokes live here. Belle Star and her boy learn about the joy of kissing and caressing, and they forget about their mission. In the end, sex saves the galaxy!

If the plot sounds absurd and idiotic, I can assure you sitting through the movie is actually worse! "Escape from Galaxy 3" must be one of the dumbest and mind-numbing movies I ever watched, but somehow you keep gazing at the lovely lead actress Sherry Buchanan in her hypnotizing outfits and forgive all the goofiness.

OK the aliens themselves didn't disco but their outfits looked as if they belonged in a sci-fi disco-tech and some of the earthlings wearing peplum outfits danced a tribal disco complete with disco music! Yes this film is laughable, awful, yet entertaining in very weird way. OH and how can you not like Lord Glitterbeard! That was too funny.

Basically, Lord Glitterbeard (or what's his name) is out to get the 2 aliens. The 2 aliens land on earth to hide from him but learn love from some peplum wearing earthlings who's leader claims that they are the last of their kind. The two aliens end up falling in-love and they don't care that they will no longer be immortal because they will know the joys of life and love plus they can catch virus, disease and such - they feel that love is worth the risk.

Terrible movie but kinda fun to watch in an odd way.

4/10